xCoAx Publication Ethics

xCoAx is committed to ensuring ethics in publication and to maintaining integrity and good practices in academic publishing.

Conformance to standards of ethical behavior is expected of Authors, Editors, Reviewers and Publisher.

The following guidelines are based on Elsevier recommendations and COPE’s Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors available at publicationethics.org.

1. Editors

1.1. Publication decisions

The editors of xCoAx are ultimately responsible for accepting or rejecting a manuscript and deciding which of the articles submitted to the conference should be published in the Conference Proceedings. Editorial decisions may be guided by the policies of the editorial board, or justified by legal motives relating to plagiarism, copyright or ethics infringement.

1.2. Peer Review

Editors shall ensure that the peer review process is fair, unbiased, and timely. Submissions to xCoAx must typically be reviewed by at least two reviewers, and where necessary the editors should seek additional opinions. The editors shall review all disclosures of potential conflicts of interest made by reviewers in order to determine whether there is any potential for bias.

1.3. Fair Review

No type of positive or negative discrimination shall interfere with the Editors’ responsibilities towards a submitted or published manuscript.

The editors should evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

1.4. Confidentiality

The editors must protect the confidentiality of all unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript and of all communications with reviewers, unless otherwise agreed with the relevant authors and reviewers.

Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.

1.5. Competing Interests

Any potential editorial conflicts of interest should be declared by the editors and updated when new conflicts arise. Editors must not be involved in decisions about papers which they have written themselves. Any such submission must be subject to peer review and handled independently of the relevant author/editor.

1.6. Vigilance

Errors or ethical issues regarding content published in the xCoAx Conference Proceedings may be brought to the Editors’ attention by Authors, Reviewers or by the readers, regardless of their publication date. Errors or issues detected after publishing may lead to the publishing of corrections, retractions and/or responses.

2. Reviewers

2.1. Contribution to Editorial Decisions

Reviewers should support the editors in making editorial decisions, as well as, assist the author in improving the manuscript, throughout the editorial process.

2.2. Promptness

Reviewers must notify the editors whenever they feel unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or know that its prompt review will be impossible, so that the submission could be assigned to another referee for evaluation.

2.3. Confidentiality

Information contained in submitted manuscripts received for review must be kept confidential. Reviewers must not share the review or information about the paper, except if encouraged by the editor, nor use unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript without the express written consent of the author.

2.4. Standards of Objectivity

Reviews should be conducted objectively. Referees should express their views clearly and address points of improvement with supporting arguments, and be aware of any personal bias they may have when reviewing a paper.

2.5. Alertness to Ethical Issues

Reviewers should be alert to potential ethical issues and bring these to the attention of the editors, including any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and other published papers. Reviewers must ensure that ideas or arguments previously reported in other sources and are accompanied by the respective citation.

2.6. Competing Interests

Reviewers should consult the Editors before agreeing to review a paper where they have potential conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships with any of the authors or entities connected to the papers.

3. Authors

3.1. Reporting Standards

Manuscripts submitted for review should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. All submission should contain sufficient detail and references to permit an accurate assessment of the work. Falsified or perceptively inaccurate declarations are considered to be unethical behavior. Papers must be original, i.e. not previously published nor pending publication elsewhere. Any such situation should be clearly identified and duly referenced by the authors, with the goal of ensuring transparency. Papers and artworks submitted for publication should conform to the submission guidelines.

3.2. Data Access and Retention

prepared to retain these data during the review process. It is assumed that all the data provided by the Authors is real and authentic, and is furthermore appropriately recorded and reported, should there be a reasonable need for verification.

3.3. Originality and Acknowledgement of Sources

The authors must ensure that the manuscript is original and that any work, ideas, data or contents obtained from other sources has been appropriately cited or quoted and permission has been obtained where necessary.

Authors should cite publications that are relevant and have influenced their research activity, including their own work. Excessive self-citation or self-plagiarism is to be avoided.

3.4. Authorship

It is assumed that the contributions submitted for publication were actually authored by the designated Authors; that they constitute accounts of the Authors’ work and research; and that they do not pose any falsification or plagiarism problems, which are deemed inadmissible by the editors. It is furthermore assumed that all the Authors listed in a submitted paper made a relevant contribution to the reported research and agreed with the submitted manuscript.

3.5. Competing Interests and Acknowledgements

All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial and personal relationships with other people or entities that could be viewed as inappropriately influencing (bias) their work. All sources of financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article should be disclosed, as should the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in any stage of the work until its submission for publication. Contributors to the paper, other than the authors, who have participated in substantive aspects of the work developed (e.g. software development or technical writing), should be recognized in the acknowledgements section.

3.6. Notification of Errors

When authors detect noteworthy errors or inaccuracy in their own published work, they should immediately address it to the editors and cooperate with the editorial team to retract or correct the paper if deemed necessary.

Contact: info@xcoax.org